BIGDAMNGOD
In order to capitalize on the recent rapid increase in sales of manual transmissions, JC Transmissions has decided not only to continue advertising its 6-speed manual transmission product heavily but also to increase its production of such transmissions to the limits of its current factory capacity.
Which of the following, if true, provides the most support for the view that JC Transmissions cannot increase its transmission sales by adopting the plan outlined above?
(A)Although it sells all the transmissions that it produces, JC Transmissions' share of all manual transmission sales has declined over the last year.
(B)The time it takes a customer to receive a JC Transmissions product has decreased sharply since last year.
(C)Advertising has made JC Transmissions very well known to car aficionados, but very few people know that JC Transmissions actually builds its own transmissions from start to finish.
(D)JC Transmissions is one of only three suppliers of popular but hard-to-find 6-speed transmissions in the country.
(E)Despite a slight drop in the retail price, sales of JC Transmissions' 6-speed transmissions decreased last year.
- Recently, sales of manual trans is increasing (so more people are buying manual trans)
- JC has decided to continue advertising its 6-speed manual trans and increase production to capacity.
View - JC cannot increase its trans sales by this method (advertising manual trans and increasing its production)
What will support this view?
(A)Although it sells all the transmissions that it produces, JC Transmissions' share of all manual transmission sales has declined over the last year.
JC sells all trans it produces but its share of manual trans sales has declined over the last year. So if it produced 100 trans (including manual, automatic etc), it sold all but if last to last year 20 manual trans were sold, last year only 15 were sold. So share of manual trans has declined. But note that this could have been because last year, JC sold many more automatic and a few more manual and hence the share of manual declined. Say last to last year JC sold 100 total out of which 20 were manual (20%). Last year JC sold 200 total out of which 30 were manual (15%). So though number of manual could have still risen, share in the JC portfolio could have reduced. This doesn't mean JC's manual trans will not be successful this year. Hence this is not correct.
(B)The time it takes a customer to receive a JC Transmissions product has decreased sharply since last year.
Irrelevant
(C)Advertising has made JC Transmissions very well known to car aficionados, but very few people know that JC Transmissions actually builds its own transmissions from start to finish.
Irrelevant
(D)JC Transmissions is one of only three suppliers of popular but hard-to-find 6-speed transmissions in the country.
Supports that JC will do well; it doesn't support the view.
(E)Despite a slight drop in the retail price, sales of JC Transmissions' 6-speed transmissions decreased last year.
This supports the view. Last year, JC decreased the retail price and still the sales of its trans decreased. It was advertising heavily (since the argument says 'continue to advertise heavily) Looks like JC has lost favour among people. So even if it increases its production, its trans may not sell. Even if people are buying more manual trans, they may not buy JC manual trans.
Answer (E)